Mortician's first "album" No War and More, a compilation of demos and live tracks, was awful, plagued by poor sound, songwriting and performances. The band's "official" debut album, Mortician, suffers from almost none of the compilation's problems and has been growing on me for several weeks. The songs aren't original, but are mid-paced, loose and unpolished, in a classic NWOBHM way, and that's music to these ears. The vocals of Daniel Khan are what set the band apart. At times he growls like Grave Digger's Chris Boltendahl and then sings clean like AC/DCs Brian Johnson before moving to the unrestrained screams of Split Heaven's Eligio Valenzuela. His grasp of English pronunciation is imperfect but that actually adds to the fun. He's kind of a poor man's King Diamond. Many of the songs have rather repetitive choruses, and that's a disappointment, along with the inclusion of three live tracks to end the album. Like No War and More, these live songs blur the line between "loose" and "sloppy" and could easily have been left off.

I was ready to not like this album, based on the compilation, but it is actually very good, especially if you like your Heavy Metal straight up and NWOBHM-flavored. Nice turnaround for Mortician, one that makes me look forward to future releases.